Program Details
"Wisconsin’s Silurian Sea: From Reef to Rock" by Dr. Jonathan R. Hendricks
Long before the age of dinosaurs, Wisconsin was covered by a shallow sea that thrived with life. This ancient biodiversity is well recorded in the ~430-million-year-old Silurian bedrock of eastern Wisconsin and the behind-the-scenes fossil collections of the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM). This presentation will introduce the Silurian fossil record, highlight its representation in MPM’s Silurian Reef diorama and collections, and comment on the modern economic importance of this geologic past.
About the Speaker
Dr. Jonathan R. Hendricks is the Robert & Sally Manegold Associate Research Curator of Paleontology at MPM. Jon received his BS in Geology and Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999 and his PhD in Paleontology at Cornell University in 2005. Prior to arriving at MPM in 2024, Jon was Associate Professor of Geology at San Jose State University in California and Associate Director of Science Communication at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, New York. Jon’s research focuses on mollusks (snails and clams) from the southeastern US and Caribbean throughout the past 10 million years.